a late late report -- cil 2006 day 3

this report should have been up on 3/24/2006. i was late.

utilities for safeguarding your computing environment the speaker introduced 5 sections of security ware at lost cost. the sections included antivirus software, firewalls, spyware detection and removal, anti-trojans and rootkit removers, and other useful utilities. security ware mentioned in this session would fit for mid to small size libraries. with the collection of the security ware, we can propose a series of information session on security ware for our members.

SEs vs libraries
SE=search engine. gary price from ask.com talked about how search engines, like ask.com, of course, should be used by libraries and librarians. nothing impressive except that the search result from ask.com presents a well-designed link categories.

open source software for libraries
Glen Horton from gclc threw out a couple of slides on different types of open source (translate: free) software that can be used by libraries. The categories include digital collection (i'm surprised), ils, web content filtering/caching, wifi hotspot authentication, and thin client solutions.
another group from miami university libraries from oxford, ohio, reported on a new library system that categorizes the resources by course. this new resource index became popular among students, while faculty seem to be more inclined to resources by subject.

the web 2.0 challenge to libraries
one of the best sessions of the conference. the speaker, paul miller, from talis, talked about how we should push libraries everywhere, make libraries seeable, and how we should disaggregate library systems to build on our own needs, not what vendors impose on us.

virtual reference, im chat, and beyond
nothing innovative of this session.

something i noticed: a lot of vendors/publishers have people with british accent give presentations. does that add more value to the product? well...that's at least the underline message. hehe.